


Dinner with Voldemort

by MegKF



Series: Dinner in Harry Potter Land [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1556120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegKF/pseuds/MegKF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter and his friends are held prisoner at Riddle Manor when a mysterious one-eyed man appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner with Voldemort

**Author's Note:**

> Buffy is owned by Mutant Enemy and Harry Potter is owned by a lot of people… No copyright infringement is intended. Fanfiction is, in my opinion, free advertisement. There are many things I've bought because I enjoyed fanfiction that crossed into a new fandom. I encourage everyone to purchase these products.
> 
> Note: This takes place after the end of Buffy Season 7 and Harry Potter Book 6.

Harry Potter and his friends were in trouble. This time, though, it was doubtful they’d find a way out of it. They were all, all being everyone in the DA, currently manacled up on the wall in the entry way to Riddle Manor where anyone, everyone actually, who came in or left the house could see them. They didn’t really have any way to plan an escape without someone overhearing.

“I’m sorry guys, this is all my fault,” Harry began.

“No Harry,” Hermione interrupted, “it’s not your fault. We planned this out together. Who would have thought he was spying on us with a real snake? He’d usually only use Nagini, who is way too big to hide. We had the wards up to prevent animagi from spying on us. Finding a way to take memories from snakes and putting them into a pensive is incredible.”

“Still I don’t think we can escape from this and he’s planning to execute us at midnight…” Harry’s voice trailed off as he remembered the other things Voldemort had said he was going to them and shuddered.

“What did you do to annoy him that much? The Wizarding World must be getting pretty desperate if they’re sending teenagers to save them. You all can’t be more than 16,” interrupted a new voice.

The prisoners looked over at the door that had opened for a young muggle looking man. He was wearing blue jeans and a bright shirt. He peered up at them curiously, which was probably a hard look to pull off with just one eye, the other one covered up with an eye patch.

***

Hermione was the first to recover from her surprise, “You’re a muggle?”

“What is a muggle doing here?” cried out Ron. “You have to run mate, the people here will kill you!”

“Dude, relax, I’m not in any danger. I’m not technically a muggle. I have magic, I just didn’t know about it until a couple of weeks ago. Grew up on the Hellmouth, my mom too, I got my magic from her. She probably never knew about magic. Her mother was a witch, formally trained at Hogwarts too, she ran off there to hide from Voldemort. Apparently it’s really hard to track people magically near Hellmouths. Even places like Hogwarts can’t identify magic users there. Downside is the high mortality rate. My grandmother died when my mom was 6 or 7. If she ever did tell my mom about magic she probably forgot before she was old enough to learn.”

“Then will you help us?” asked Harry a note of hope in his voice.

“‘W’-word I could. Can’t though. Which sorts of bites since I’m one of the good guys.”

“You’re American,” interjected Hermione recognizing his accent, her voice neared lecturing note as she spoke. “The British Ministry of Magic can’t hold you for acting as a good Samaritan.”

“I didn’t know that actually. Unfortunately the reason I can’t help you is because I work for The Watcher’s Council. The people who used to head it centuries ago were just as jerky as the ones who got blown up a couple of years ago, the politicians from your ministry then weren’t really good guys either. Neither trusted the other, and considering what I know of them both, I wouldn’t have trusted either of them myself. And… Well… The treaty they agreed to says that employees of The Watcher’s Council cannot interfere with the Wizarding World unless demon summoning or other forms of demonic contact are taking place or in self-defense. Dark Lord or not, neither he nor his followers are dealing with demons and, as I already said, I’m not in danger here. So any attempts I could make to help you would cause me to be frozen in place until I stopped trying to help.”

***

“There’s something I don’t get,” Neville said quietly, his voice almost echoing in the hall due to the quiet that had followed the American’s last words. “If you aren’t allowed to interact with wizards why are you here?”

“Oh, I can interact. There are loopholes because I’m technically a wizard. It’s just that when I tried to help someone last time I came here I literally froze. That’s how I found out about the treaty. You wouldn’t believe some of the treaties we’ve uncovered at The Watcher’s Council because of this. We’re working on dissolving some of them, but we can’t mess with this one much, there is a lot of magic in it since Wiccan and Wizarding magic reinforce it. They are working on it, but until representatives from the Ministry of Magic show up to renegotiate there isn’t much I can do.”

“Last time?” asked Hermione her eyes wide as she tried to understand exactly what was going on.

“Yeah… This is my third weekly dinner with Voldemort.”

“Third!?” Ron’s voice rose higher than anyone had heard before.

“But I thought you said your grandmother was trying to get away from him?” Hermione just couldn’t let this go, no way was she going to die with a mystery unsolved.

“She was. She didn’t want him to have anything to do with my mother. Grandmother didn’t want my mother to be raised as a... How did Voldemort put it? A ‘Dark Heiress.’ Voldemort is my grandfather.”

“What!?” several voices rose up from the teenagers bound to the wall. Not all of them spoke in shock, some had become slack jawed and were simply staring while a couple of them tried to shrink away from this man.

“Yeah. You know, it could have been useful to know I could talk to snakes when I was living on the Hellmouth. After Sunnyhell sank I came to England to help rebuild The Watcher’s Council and Voldemort found me. He had some tracking stuff built in case another ‘heir of Slytherin’ showed up. I had my friends verify what he said to me with magic and he is my grandfather. It’s kind of disturbing, it was bad enough having an abusive alcoholic father, but a mass murdering cult leader for a grandfather does tend to top that...”

It might be important to know that Xander’s grandmother was a pureblood. When she had been a young woman she had started seeing ‘Tom Riddle’ not Voldemort. She just couldn't believe in blood purity. After all she'd fallen in love with a ‘Riddle,’ someone who most definitely didn't have a pureblood family name. The day she'd discovered herself to be pregnant she'd run off to tell him. She had been horrified to discover him talking to her brother about setting himself up to be a dark lord. At this discovery she had run off to the Hellmouth. She knew that other inactive Hellmouths, such as Cleveland, might have worked at concealing their location from Tom, but not as well. She worried that the school letters would come addressed to ‘Jessica Riddle,’ creating the potential for discovery, it would have also removed the child from the concealing nature of the Hellmouth. Voldemort would have found Jessica just as easily as he found Xander once he was far enough away from Sunnydale. Either Oxnard wasn’t far enough by the way or the magical trace didn’t work while he was disembodied, no one is sure which. She had been killed by a demon when she let her guard down one night. Hellmouths do tend to kill some good people…

***

“So… I’m Xander Harris, heir to your apparent big bad. And you are?”

“Er… I’m Harry Potter, the boy your grandfather has been obsessed with killing since a failed attempt when I was a year old… These are my friends.” Harry looked lost as his friends each said their name quietly, soon an uncomfortable silence developed.

“Why are you still here?” Luna finally asked. She was having trouble because looking at Xander hurt, she saw signs that many of the odd creatures no one else seemed to believe in had once surrounded the boy, but that somehow they all seemed to avoid him now.

“I’m waiting for my wife. She wanted to stop at Gringotts to check on her family vault before dinner. She should be here soon.”

“You married a pureblood?” Ron screeched. “You believe in all the blood purity stuff just like your grandfather!”

“Actually no he doesn’t,” came a voice from the shadows outside the entry door. In walked a beautiful woman who went up to Xander and wrapped an arm possessively around his waist. “He knew I used to be a witch, he had no idea that my family had all been magically for centuries. In fact,” she said with a slight snicker, “he thought I’d practiced Wiccan magic. I’m Anya Harris.”

“I never get tired of hearing you call yourself that,” Xander said softly turning to face her. He tilted his head down and they shared a passionate kiss. Now the students weren’t too happy to be witnessing this, if he was a good guy, like he claimed, they felt he shouldn’t be making out in front of them when they only had a few hours before his grandfather was going to kill them.

For Xander, Anya was just too precious not to want to focus on her when she was there. Having lost her when Sunnydale sank only for her to come back a couple of hours later thanks to some sort of ex-vengeance demon get out of death free once card had only made him realize how important to him she was. He’d re-proposed right away, once it was verified she wasn’t the First Evil anyway. They’d even had a quick Vegas stop over with all the Scoobies before going to England to pick up the pieces of the Watcher’s Council. Anya hadn’t been about to give him time to change his mind again. He was hers again and she wasn’t going to let him go. As their kiss ended she leaned up against Xander.

“How did your trip to the bank go?” Xander asked Anya. At this some of the DA members were getting really annoyed, most noticeably Ron, but then he does tend to be prone to that sometimes. This trip had been very important to Anya, to Xander, to everyone at the Watcher’s Council really. You see, Anya placed, among other things, many magical tomes in her vault during her time as a demon. The Watcher’s Council had lost a lot of information when they’d gone boom and even the Scoobies didn’t have much either since most of the books they had used were now at the bottom of a very large sinkhole. Having access to her considerable library of demonic texts could actually save the world. Anya, of course, did have a couple of mixed feelings on this herself since she still considered herself to be on good terms on some of the demons noted in the books. Of course if they weren’t hurting humans then the slayers would leave them alone, at least in theory anyway. It was a hard decision but she didn’t really want the people she had come to care about to die because she wouldn’t share.

“Good good. There weren’t any problems. I have been making deposits over the last thousand years after all, just haven’t made any withdrawals. So it worked out easily. And I’ve been earning lots of interest too. The family home in England is vacant right now too so we can move in right away. I’d been leasing it out. Your grandfather killed off the last renter 20 years ago. There are some other properties I own around the world that the Watcher’s Council can use for training and housing if they’re willing to pay rent, I’ll even give them a good deal.”

Several member of the DA were confused following the conversation. A couple of them glanced at each other trying to see if they were hearing the same thing. Hermione was the one to speak up, perhaps this was why she was in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw, “What do you mean ‘last thousand years’?”

“Oh!” Anya exclaimed looking a tad embarrassed. She was still in the honeymoon frame of mind and, like Xander, tended to focus on her new spouse when they were together. This was why she had gone to the bank alone, no Xander to distract her when she needed to focus on her precious money. “Formal introduction! I’m Anya Harris now, but I used to be Anyanka, Patron Saint of Scorned Women. I was the justice demon who went around hurting men for hurting women.”

Xander coughed out, “Vengeance demon.” Then tried, unsuccessfully, to look innocent as Anya directed a soft glare at him. She was too happy to be with him to really care if he called it ‘Justice’ or ‘Vengeance.’

“I’ve read about you,” Hermione said, once again speaking out. “You’re responsible for Marcus Blackthorn going blind!”

“Ohhh, I remember that. He cheated on his wife and she wished that he couldn’t ‘see’ anyone ever again. No magical eye or magic spell or potion could undo what I did. I used to be really good at stuff like that.”

“But I thought you hated men, all men,” Hermione said with her forehead wrinkled up in thought. She knew of several rumors of her actions that couldn’t be verified in books she had read and the idea of that demon marrying wasn’t something she could grasp.

“Oh I did. We actually met while I was on assignment,” Anya started explaining.

“I was her target when we first met. My girlfriend had caught me kissing my best friend. That made her a scorned women, Anyanka came, granted her wish and was vanquished, made human again.” Xander finished the explanation quickly, know that Anya liked to make it a much longer story and knew these kids didn’t really want to know as much detail as Anya would tell.

“I’d think knowing something like that would make a relationship difficult,” Harry said softly.

“Oh, we had our ups and downs, but it all worked out in the end. I mean there was the brief period where I became the champion for scorned women again, but it didn’t work well, I just didn’t have it in me to hurt guys who weren’t that bad. After all, I had been summoned to hurt Xander, and although he hurt Cordelia he didn’t really deserve to be hurt.”

“Oh, Ahn,” Xander said softly looking down at Anya and they kissed again.

“So I could wish us out of this?” Neville asked hopefully. He knew enough to know that vengeance demons were the reason for the phrase ‘be careful for what you wish for, you just might get it.’

“Nope, no deal, it’s not my gig anymore, you’re not a scorned woman and you haven’t suffered in the ways necessary to summon a justice demon anyway,” Anya said this in a disgustingly perky voice that made some of the DA hoped that she’d leave soon.

“Mr. Harris,” came the smooth voice of Severus Snape who stood in the doorway to the innards of the house. “You’re keeping the Dark Lord waiting. Dinner is ready to be served.”

“I told you to call me Xander,” Xander said as he led his wife away from the teenagers.

***

As Anya and Xander were guided to the dining room by Snape, Anya thought back to the only other time she’d met Voldemort.

*Flashback – 3 weeks ago*

Everyone had just arrived in England a few days ago and they were all busy trying to see how much they could salvage from the ruins of the Old Watcher’s Council, as it was now referred. Willow was busy establishing wards on Giles’ family home, which was, for now at least, the headquarters for the New Watcher’s Council. There was a great deal of concern among the people gathered there about the lack of books and the like. Giles had almost all of his books in Sunnydale, which was, as they well knew, a crater. The Old Watcher’s Council headquarters had been blown up taking all its precious information with it.

Everyone looked around as they heard a strange poofing sound. Their eyes narrowed in on the people who had appeared on their lawn. The light of the moon casting odd shadows around them. The Scoobies & co. were all on guard with their respective weapons ready for whatever was coming. As the two groups looked at each other ready to attack if needed Anya realized what she was seeing.

“What are wizards doing here? The Ministry of Magic firmly established laws to keep wizards away from muggles. I could file complaints against this you know. These people are unaware of the Wizarding World.” Anya spoke loudly and forcefully demanding explanations from these outsiders.

Two of the three men standing on the lawn exchanged glances as the put their wands down but not away. The third man walked forward throwing the hood of his cloak back revealing a hideous face, looking out at them he began to speak.

“I’m looking for Alexander Harris. I am Lord Voldemort and I believe he is my grandson.”

“I’m Xander,” he said speaking out firmly. He paused for a moment, then speaking before anyone else could, “Does this mean I’m not human?”

“My current appearance was caused by a… potions experiment,” Voldemort explained. He walked forward noting that his mention of potions didn’t faze his grandson. He stopped about 10 feet away from him. He had no doubt looking at him that this boy was his blood. He had the same hair, the same stance, that he had had at the age. “I have a device in my possession that tracks people of my family and it recently went off tracking you. It stated quiet clearly that you were my daughter’s son. Which is interesting, in and of itself, since I was unaware I had a daughter.”

“Does this mean Xander is a wizard?” Anya asked. Then, turning to look at Xander, she spoke again before they could answer. “That would explain a lot. The magic going wonky around you, the way demons are attracted to you. Untrained wizards tend to attract the supernatural, though it was probably much worse for you since you lived on the Hellmouth.”

“That would explain a lot Master,” spoke one of the two men behind Voldemort. This was Severus Snape speaking. His knowledge of obscure magic coming in useful once more. “The Hellmouth blocks many things, it would explain why neither he nor his mother appeared on your sensors before.”

“Very well then. You are my grandson, I expect you to come to dinner with me next week and we’ll discuss your future. Take this,” at that Voldemort pulled out a small gem and tossed it to him, “this will bring you, only you, to me next week for dinner.”

The three men vanished with another poof. Willow reached over and took the gem from Xander, if Xander was related to this man then she could use the gem to confirm it. They turned to look at Anya for answers.

*end flashback*

Anya held on tighter to Xander as they entered the dining room to greet his grandfather, Willow had done over a dozen different spells each confirming that this man was indeed her grandfather in law. Anya had ended up spending the next week sharing all she knew about the Wizarding World. She was very out of date, although she had occasionally granted wishes to witches she had never learned more about what was going on beside what was needed to blend in until a wish was made. Willow had looked up many wards to add to protect against unexpected wizard visits.

Anya looked up at Xander as they sat down beside each other at the table. She was happy that he had accepted the kind of witch she had been in her pre demon days, but was concerned about what had happened at the other two dinners he had gone to alone. He had returned from each one withdrawn and had spent a lot of time talking to them about what happened and the details horrified her.

***

*Flashback – 2 weeks ago*

Xander felt nauseous. Whatever teleporty thing his grandfather, here Xander paused shivering from remembering his appearance, had given him made him feel funky. As Xander approach the creepy looking house that had to be his destination, he fingered his wedding ring. Willow had placed as many protected charms on it as possible, it would now protect against possession, which would have been useful years ago, and it would also transport him back to Giles’ home if he were in danger. Willow had, in fact, placed many additional charms on it without knowing. Hardly anything capable of influencing him adversely could get near him. This would later be the reason why Luna would have trouble looking at him.

Xander stopped as he saw a woman approaching him from the house. She was creepy weird, her black hair was flying wildly in the wind. She stopped as she got just a few yards away. Her eyes flew over the man before her and she smirked.

“My oh my, a little defenseless muggle has come a calling,” she said, her voice rising into high pitched cackling, which reminding Xander way too much of his hyena days.

Xander saw, as he watched her unmoving, that she fingered a wand in her hand, not that dissimilarly from how he’d fingered his ring just moments ago. Xander had spent way too much time around demons for a crazy witch do more than reach a 4 (out of 10) on his “I Should be Worried” scale. He remained calm, the eyebrow on his good eye arching up just a little, not that anyone would notice since the other eyebrow couldn’t be seen.

“I’m here to have dinner with my grandfather, Voldemort.”

“You’re Alexander?” she asked, her voice sounding what probably went for shocked for her.

“Yeah,” Xander’s voice trailed off, he decided in that moment that he didn’t want her calling him Xander. It was bad enough that so many demons called him by what had once been a fond nickname given to him by Willow, he’d rather not have human nutsos calling him that too… Besides, she’s British, she probably doesn’t like nicknames.

“That’s lovely!” her voice resuming an almost normal sound. She reached over grabbing his elbow forcing him to take the position of an escort and guided him into the house. Xander looked around as he was guided through the house. Cobwebs and the like covered all the nooks and crannies of the house. At last she guided him into the dining room, which was miraculously clean. Sitting at the large dining table were Voldemort and one of the men who had come with him the previous week.

“Welcome Alexander,” hissed the voice of his grandfather. “This is Severus Snape,” here he gestured towards the man sitting next to him. “And your escort is Bellatrix Lestrange. They both work for me.”

“Not cleaning I see,” Xander attempted to joke.

“No. I don’t spend much time here, but felt this was neutral area. I lived here until recently, myself and my servants are staying at another place. That’s clean.” The last part added as if an afterthought. At this point the evil headquarters was firmly planted at Malfoy Manner. Lucius Malfoy had been the other man with Voldemort the week before, but it isn’t really important to this flashback to know that.

Silence soon filled the room as food was brought by the house elves that were borrowed from various minions of Voldemort. It should be noted that Xander didn’t really react to them since Anya had recently summoned the descendants of her old house elves back to her service. They had stayed with the tenants of her homes pretty much since she had first become a demon. On the upside her house elves were a lot… saner than most due to the fact that Anya never punished them and gave them permission to do almost anything they could want to.

Each person began to eat the food in front of them, after doing their own tests for poisons and potions. Yes, the wedding ring was also enchanted to reveal those problems. It might be important to note that Voldemort no longer ate like a normal person due to the resurrection he went through to live again. And it might also be of note that Xander hardly reacted to that at all, he had, after all, seen Clem eat before.

“So what do you do?” Snape asked breaking the silence.

“I work for an international corporation based out of England that deals with demonic problems around the world. I mainly work as a carpenter though. I usually end up fixing a lot of stuff because of demon attacks and the like.”

“You don’t do anything more magical?” Snape asked curiously. He was wondering exactly how much magical knowledge the heir to the Dark Lord had.

“I help out with some research, although it is getting creepy. We only have a few books that we’re working with right now, we got them from people who used to work in the organization who weren’t in headquarters when it blew up. They had been doing private research in their own homes. Most of them were working on translating books of prophesies that are coming into the near future time frame. I’m actually in some of the prophesies, I’m just glad we didn’t know I was called the One Who Sees until after most of them would have occurred.”

“What do you mean?” asked Voldemort as he and his companions gave Xander their undivided attention. This wigged out Xander a bit, so he leaned back in his seat a bit as he explained.

“Prophesies usually come true only if you act on them. Like one of my friends in High School. She found out there was a prophesy about her in this book of prophesies that always came true. It said she would be led by a young child to her death and that her death would free this ancient vampire. She choose to follow the prophesy, but the vampire told her when he killed her that if she hadn’t come she wouldn’t have died and he would still be trapped. Thankfully I followed her and saved her, although she did technically die.

“After that happened I looked through prophesies that appear in mythology. One of the most well known stories tells the tale of Oedipus, who before his birth was prophesied to kill his father and marry his mother. So his father ordered him killed. Only he wasn’t killed and was instead raised in another kingdom. When he grew up he found out about the prophesy and he left thinking it was about the parents who raised him. As he wandered he ran into a cruel man and killed him not knowing it was his father. He later came to meet a beautiful woman, a recent widow, and married her not knowing they were mother and son.”

“Do you mean to tell me, that if there were, for example, a prophesy about me, that it wouldn’t have been accurate if I hadn’t acted on it?”

“Not necessarily, like with me, we found mention of me in seven prophesies, only one of them came true, the others are all obsolete now the circumstances have passed that could have made them happen, the only reason that that one came true is because another person involved knew about it and acted on it. So if someone else knew about your prophesy they could set it into motion.”

“What prophesy about you came true?”

“Summarized? It told the story of my wife and me. Her boss knew about it and made sure it came true. I’m kind of happy he did that now. Apparently she’s my soul mate.”

The other exchanged looks until Snape decided to speak, “That’s very… romantic.”

Voldemort tilted his head as if he heard something near his shoulder and rose suddenly, “I have something I must deal with. I’ll see you again next week Alexander.” Voldemort poofed out of the room.

“My lord!” Bellatrix cried out and poofed out after him.

“I apologize for their rudeness,” Snape said simply, his voice silky and smooth, sounding unapologetic. The two men finished their meal in silence before each returned to their respective homes.

***

*Flashback – 1 week ago*

Xander arrived early to his next dinner with his grandfather. He walked silently through the house until he arrived at the door to the dining room. He looked on as Voldemort talked to his two minions. Xander knew that the woman at least was a minion, he wasn’t actually sure about the man. They all stood around a strange object that Xander identified as a magical object of some kind. Xander cleared his throat and found himself with three wands pointed at him.

“Wow! I know I’m early but no need to get violent!” Xander called out. At his voice the others lowered their wands. Xander came all the way into the room. The others all exchanged looks, they didn’t have time for this.

“I apologize Alexander, Bellatrix and I have an errand to run and will return shortly for dinner,” Voldemort said attempting to sound nice.

“Alright…” Xander’s voice trailed off as they both poofed out. “They do that a lot.”

“I suppose so. They had an emergency at work to take care of,” came the oily voice of Snape.

“What’s that?” Xander asked pointing to the object the others had been using.

“That’s a pensieve. We use it to store memories. We wouldn’t normally have it here, but your grandfather needed to view a couple of memories given to him immediately. He didn’t expect to have to deal with it right away, but it turned out to be time sensitive.”

“Oh.” Xander found that he was often lost for words when dealing with his grandfather and his minions.

“Since dinner has been delayed I’m going to go check on my potions lab.” Snape poofed out.

Xander eyed the spot Snape had just been suspiciously. It had sounded to him like an excuse to get away, which therefore sounded way too much like… Xander shuddered unwilling to remember the details of the last time that had happened to him. Xander then looked at the object in the room wondering if it was truly what Snape had said it was or something else. He walked close to it and saw, sitting on its rim, a small garden snake.

“Well hello,” he said to the little snake, this was the first snake he’d ever seen in person, they apparently avoided hellmouths. Snakes apparently had the intelligence to stay away from them even though they didn’t know why.

“Hello,” replied the snake.

“Oh wow! You can talk? Are you a magic snake?” Xander’s eyes were opened wide and he was staring at the snake.

“No. I’ve only ever spoken to the man who was in here just now. No one else can understand me.”

“But… Oh, perhaps this is one of those family gifts Anya told me about.” Xander had had to sit through several lectures by Anya about the magical world back when she’d been human the first time.

“Perhaps,” the snake didn’t really care one way or another.

“What are you doing here?”

“Master wished to see what I see when I’m near certain people.”

Never let it be said that Xander couldn’t figure things out when needed. He stood there for a moment, alternating between focusing on the snake and gazing at the pensieve. It didn’t take a Willow to figure out that the snake’s memories had been placed inside the pensieve, or to figure out that the snake was a spy for his grandfather. Xander turned his head to the side and looked down for a moment until he came to a decision. He stepped forward and touched the pensieve trying to figure out how to view the memories. He really needed to know what was going on. It took him a few moments until the world went dark and he was there inside the memories. He stood there and watched memory after memory, unable to get out until they had all played.

To Xander it had taken hours to go through it all, but in truth it had only taken a few minutes. Xander came out of the pensieve sick to his stomach and activated the wiccan equivalent to a portkey home that Willow had enchanted into his wedding ring. He appeared in front of his friends who rose in concern to his quick trip home. He ran to the bathroom and threw up. His friends followed him upstairs and watched in concern as he heaved. Anya rushed to his side and patted his back. When she saw he was done she got him a cup of water.

“What’s wrong Xander?” asked Buffy, her voice concerned. She, Willow and Giles crowded close to him. Some of the other slayers were there but kept a bit of distance. Dawn was out late studying at Oxford. And of course Faith, Robin and many of the other slayers were in Cleveland.

“Willow! Can you transport us to London’s central park? Right now!”

Willow looked confused but doing as asked, Xander and those closest to him appeared in central park. Xander looked around and rushed off toward the scream that broke the silence in the air. The others followed just a step behind him. They came to the edge of a clearing where they could see Voldemort and several of his minions wearing dark robes and white masks standing around some people who were screaming or crying, those that were still alive anyway. They tried to go forward to help him but found themselves frozen. Willow attempted a spell but nothing happened.

“We’re under some sort of spell so we can’t interfere,” Willow figured out quickly. They all watched in horror as the people were tortured to death while they were frozen in place. No matter how much they struggled they couldn’t do anything. Willow couldn’t bear it, knowing that they couldn’t do anything she took them back home.

“What is going on?” screamed Buffy.

“My grandfather is the big bad of the wizarding world. I went through this thing that holds memories and it was full of things like what happened in the park. It also contained all sorts of memories of scenes he spied on. He tracks down people who oppose him and does that to them. He found out right before we would have had dinner about a couple of groups meeting in the park tonight, so he left to deal with it. He doesn’t know I’m not there, I have to go back while you all figure out what spell stopped us from helping.”

“What? No! Xander honey, after what we just saw you can’t go near him,” Anya said softly, trying to convince him to stay.

“No Ahn. I have to do this. We have to find a way to stop him. He’s killed hundreds of people. God Ahn. What I saw in that thing… This isn’t like dealing with most demons. It’s part of their nature to hurt humans. This is different, humans hurting their own for no reason but prejudice. We have to stop him, we just have to.”

“Xander…” Anya began to say unsure of how to continue, so she just stopped. She reached up and hugged him knowing he had to go and attempt to fit in with his insane grandfather so they could stop him. She let go as Willow reached over and touched his wedding ring activating the recall option on it returning him to where he had last activated it.

***

*Flashback – 1 week ago continued*

Xander returned to Riddle Manor before the others and tried to figure out how to conceal what he’d discovered from the others. He looked around and saw the snake still sitting on the pensieve. He walked over and picked it up.

“Hey, little guy,” Xander hissed softly to the snake. “Don’t tell the other guy you can talk to that I looked into that thing, alright?”

“Alright, Snake Speaker, as long as he doesn’t ask I won’t mention it.”

The two proceeded to talk between themselves for the next several minutes until the poofing sound of someone teleporting back was heard. Xander looked up as Snape approached him.

“How did your potions check go?” Xander asked calmly, as if he wasn’t freaking out in his head.

“It went well,” Snape replied. Snape’s eyes glanced down at the small snake in Xander’s hand before his gaze went to the pensieve for a moment before returning his attention to Xander. Before he could continue two more poofs were heard as Voldemort and Bellatrix returned from their torture and kill session.

Xander was greatly disturbed as they sat down to dinner and the two of them were so cheerful, which was so unlike them from the little time he’d spent with them. In fact, if he hadn’t known what they were doing he would have thought the two of them had been making out. Xander shuddered internally at the thought.

Voldemort, in an attempt to be civil, turned to look at Xander and spoke out, “So what did you two talk about?”

Xander looked at Snape for a moment realizing that Snape had been assigned to watch him and had essentially left his post. Xander made a split-second decision as Snape’s eyes widened momentarily, “Actually I spent most of my time talking to the snake.” Xander tilted his head to the side to reveal the snake comfortable resting beside his neck.

“You can talk to him?” Voldemort asked softly.

“Yeah. … Shouldn’t I be able to? I thought it might be one of those family gift things that Anya told me about.” Xander allowed his gaze to waver between his three dinner companions. If it wasn’t a family gift, then what was it?

“It is a gift. A trait that belongs to the line of Slytherin. Our ancestor Salazar Slytherin was the most well-known parselmouth ever.”

“Parselmouth?”

“Parselmouths are people who can speak parseltongue, the language of snakes.”

“Ah.”

“It is a sign, proving you are indeed the heir of Slytherin, after myself. We are the last of his descendants. … Tell me about this Anya. Is she a Witch?”

“Oh, yeah. She is. A pureblood too, whatever that means. She’s been teaching me about the wizarding world since we found out I’m technically a wizard.”

“What do you mean technically?” Snape snapped out.

“Well, we checked, I do have a magical core, but I don’t really have any interest in learning more than I have to. She’s really happy though since it greatly increases the chance that any spawn, err children, we might have will be magical.”

“So I might have great grandchildren in the near future?” Voldemort had never really thought about that, mainly because he’d been so busy before his defeat years before and it had been confirmed that after his resurrection he could no longer have children. He also hadn’t known about his daughter and grandson until recently.

“Not in the near future, I’m only 23 after all, plenty of time for that later, when we’re more stable. Plus Anya told me with some training my core can increase my life-span.” Xander had found that focusing on things that weren’t life or death really helped him to not panic when socializing with bad guys, kind of reminded him of Jack and his zombie squad back in high school.

A silence formed over the group as they silently continued eating before Bella, of all people, broke it with a question she’d wanted to ask since learning where Xander is from, “Have you ever met any famous demons?

“Bellatrix!” Voldemort admonished, his eyes flashing a bright red for a moment.

Xander, seeing his grandfather, interrupted, unsure of how Voldemort would act, “I’ve met many demons, even dated a few. The most well known one would be Dracula, I guess. That I met not dated!”

“You met Dracula?” asked Snape surprised.

“Yeah, I so don’t like him, he had an unhealthy fascination with one of my friends. Actually a lot of vampires do. Angel Angelus and Spike also paid a lot of attention to her that I disapproved of.”

“Angelus, as in the Scourge of Europe?” Snape all but yelled out as he dropped his fork.

“You’ve heard of him?” Xander asked in surprise, he thought Angelus was only really known in some demonic circles.

“I didn’t think he was real,” Snape explained. “My mother used to tell stories of them, Darla, Angelus, Drusilla the Mad and William the Bloody. A lot of wizarding parents used to do that to prevent their children from ever inviting anyone in at night.”

“I forgot Spike used to be called William the Bloody.”

“You know him too!?”

“I’ve met all of them. I don’t really count Darla though. She died a couple of weeks after I found out about demons. I once stared down Angelus, I was unarmed so I’m kind of proud of that. I don’t know where Drusilla is, I suppose it doesn’t really affect me unless she decides she wants to send me puppy heads again. She did that a couple of times after the love spell ended. And Spike used to be my roommate. Did you know Dracula owes him money? Never play cards with Dracula, he doesn’t pay up.”

At this Voldemort and his two death eaters were all but stunned, without magic, to silence. This is just as well since Xander finished his dinner a moment later.

“Thanks for dinner. I should get home to my wife. Is it okay if I take that snake?” Xander said quickly, hoping to leave as soon as safely possible.

“Yes,” Voldemort said after a few seconds pause. “I don’t need him now. Bring your wife with you next time. I’d like to meet her.” He reached over and enchanted Xander’s fork quickly so it could be used to transport both of them back.

“If she wants to,” Xander said as he portkeyed home.

*back at Slayer Headquarters in England*

Xander returned to Slayer Headquarters and immediately embraced Anya, wanting her presence to cleanse the darkness he felt clinging to his very soul from spending time with them.

“Xander, Honey, what happened?” Anya asked softly into his hair as her arms went around him as he leaned into her at her place on the sofa. Anya and the Scoobies had all waited for his return in the living room.

“I saw memories of things my grandfather has done. What happened tonight wasn’t even as bad as a lot of stuff he’s done. He's immortalized his favorite tortures by saving them in a pensieve so he could watch it over and over again. And he’s my grandfather! To know someone in my own family would do something so wrong…” Xander babbled away telling his friends everything. “Willow! Tell me you found something?”

“I did, and it isn’t good. From what I can tell we’re under a treaty from the old council forcing us not to interfere in wizarding matters unless demons are involved. He does some dealing with werewolves, but they aren’t actually demons so we can’t do anything about it from that point.”

“Well if the council can't interfere. What about if we quit and re-sign up?”

“Unfortunately it applies to former employees too.”

“Can we hire someone to take care of it? It seems like this might be a good instance to call up a Vengeance Demon. A lot of people should be demanding ‘Justice.’”

“That’s also against the treaty. We can’t hire someone human or demon to deal with wizards, we can’t deliberately do anything. The council and the wizarding world really didn’t want to have anything to do with each other. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to read through.”

“But this isn’t really the council who agreed to that treaty,” Anya said looking for a loophole. “That organization got blown up. We’re a new council.”

“A valid point. But the funds ARE the same. To have to access to the money from the old council we had to agree to abide to certain terms. Although the terms can and have changed, agreement is still required to access the money. We’ve been going through these contracts since we got to England, some of them can and are being changed and in some cases even dissolved. But we weren’t even close to dealing with that one yet, the Wizarding World contract was in the pile labeled, “Highly Unlikely to Matter in the Near Future,” so we wouldn’t have gotten to for another 3 months or so, it should have moved up in importance when we found out we were going to have contact with them.”

“We’ll work on this Xander, if there is any way to put a stop to this we’ll figure it out, together,” Buffy said moving in to hug Xander.

“There’s nothing we can’t do as long as we’re together,” Willow said joining in on the hug.

“Indeed,” Giles said softly, not moving in to join the group hug forming on the sofa. He was content to watch his children find comfort in each other.

“Xander,” Anya said, “I’ll join you next week. I don’t like you going into this alone. I’ll go to the magically alley before meeting you there. You take the old portkey and I’ll take the new one. I want to know as much as I can about what’s going on in the wizarding world, but I don’t want him to know I’ve been out finding out all this stuff before we meet for dinner in case he has spies in the alley. So I’ll wait until that day to go there. I think I might have an idea of how to deal with this, but we need to look into the details of the contract and I need to get some stuff from my vault. I also need to know the status of the Ministry of Magic and Azkaban before we finish this. We will work this out. I love you Xander.” Anya hugging Xander closer to herself.

*end flashback*

***

“I don’t believe you’ve ever asked me to call you Xander,” Snape said.

“Really? Please do,” Xander replied, attempting to duplicate Snape’s British drawl. “I prefer it.”

“Then I’ll call you that too,” Bellatrix interjected as they all joined her in the dining room.

“You will do no such thing,” snarled Anya, her voice fierce and possessive.

“Hon?” Xander asked frozen beside her. Anya hadn’t shown any jealously before now.

“That is Bellatrix Black! I got summoned to Hogwarts TWICE because of her! She’s not allowed near you from now on. I don’t trust her not to try anything!” If glares could kill, actually with some demons it is possible, Bella would be very dead. “I trust you honey, but I won’t let some hussy touch you!”

“What do you mean summoned?” asked Snape who, due to years of living at Hogwarts with hormonal youths, was able to filter out unimportant information.

“I used to be the Ven-Justice Demon for scorned women.”

“Used to be?”

“Pureblood witch before and after that with a repeat of that too.”

Xander turned to Anya with curiosity, “Why did you get summoned for her?”

“She stole some guys from their girlfriends, it’s odd to me but the girls didn’t blame the guys at all. In 6th year the girl wished for Bella’s hair to fall out, which sadly was undone when her father made a deal with an Apala Demon. In 7th year the girl wished Bella would marry someone awful. Do you have any idea how hard it was to set things up so she’d have to marry one of the Lestranges?”

As Anya spoke Bella’s eyes got wider and wider, it was her fault she had to marry that jerk when she wanted to be with her lord!

“Is that why you were able to see Potter and his friends?” asked Snape.

“We weren’t supposed to be able to see them?” Xander asked, his eye wide.

“It’s got to be part of the gifts you have as the ‘One Who Sees,’” Anya announced softly.

“One who Sees?” asked Snape of the really good hearing.

“That one prophesy about me that did happen. It should allow me to see beyond illusions, we think, we haven’t had a chance to really test it,” Xander explained.

“That could come in useful,” mused Snape.

“But that brings into questions why their presence didn’t surprise you,” Voldemort said from the doorway as he joined the others.

“You have minions,” Xander said gesturing towards Bella. “It was a given we’d eventually see prisoners here.”

“And you don’t mind? That I have prisoners chained to the wall of the entry hallway?” Voldemort queried softly.

“Well… It is in poor taste,” Xander spoke cautiously here since he still didn’t know as much as he would have like coming into this situation. “Unless this is where you normally store prisoners? This house has the evil atmosphere, but somehow I imagined you’d have more minions… Some of which that could clean…”

“Well this isn’t my main headquarters. We’re here just for meeting you. Somehow Potter and his… friends found out I was spending time here and decided to attempt an ambush,” here Voldemort let out a snort, an evil snort though, not some silly little one like you might think. “So we captured them, we haven’t had a chance to move them yet.”

A short moment of silence filled the room as they all took their seats at the table. Though there were some odd changes in the seating arrangement due to Anya and Bellatrix really disliking each other and Anya not wanting her near Xander. Which resulted in the seating arrangement of, going clockwise, Voldemort, Xander, Anya, Snape, and then Bellatrix. Where before it had been Voldemort, Snape, Xander, and then Bellatrix.

As they began to eat Xander searched desperately for a topic to discuss, coming up with one he believed, quite inaccurately, to be a safe one, “What was my mother maiden name? Since it’s obvious she didn’t take you name. Should it have been Jessica Voldemort?”

Voldemort set down his utensils to set an unblinking stare at Xander who shuddered at the look.

***

“Leave,” commanded Voldemort. As Xander and Anya rose immediately he waved his hand and held it up in the universal stop signal. As least Xander hoped that’s what it meant. “Not you. Them.” He moved his hand to gesture his minions out. They left while exchanging odd looks to one another. Xander and Anya both sat back down watching as Voldemort took out his wand and waved it around. Xander could feel the magic around him. “I just locked the door and sealed the room so they can’t hear us.”

Xander and Anya exchanged looks before turning back to Voldemort, Xander muttering a short, “Ok…”

“What I tell you here does not go beyond us and this room, agreed?” Voldemort’s voice had started out soft before ending with one very loud commanding word.

“Alright,” Xander agreed immediately, he wasn’t about to risk annoying his evil insane grandfather.

“I changed my name many years ago, I was born Tom Riddle.”

Anya sat up straight, “Tom Marvolo Riddle?”

“Yes,” Voldemort confirmed as he and Xander stared at Anya.

“You grew up in some orphanage in London?”

“How did you know that?” Voldemort rose to tower over Anya and stared down at her with red glowing eyes.

“Haley!”

“Haley?” asked Xander. “You mean he…?”

“What?” Voldemort said looking back and forth between the two.

“My best friend, Haley, she was supposed to grant you a wish when you were a child but you wouldn’t say ‘wish’ no matter what she did. She eventually gave up, but I got to listen to her complain about it. I mean she tried off and on for years!”

“Oh,” Xander had never though about what would happen to a vengeance demon that wasn’t able to get their ‘client’ to make a wish. “That must have been very frustrating.”

“It was! I think that’s the only time one of us ever gave up, normally even if they didn’t make a wish the only reason it wasn’t granted was because the client died before they could say ‘wish’.”

“Wow.”

Voldemort by this point was lost except realizing that Anya had known someone from his childhood. “No word of my old name to them,” Voldemort reached out his wand and unlocked the door.

As the door opened the sound of screams echoed off the walls. Xander and Anya hurriedly stood up and the two of them raced out into the hallway followed more slowly by Voldemort. They soon reached the entryway where Bellatrix was using the Cruciatus curse on Neville Longbottom.

Snape’s voice came out in an unrushed manner, “I doubt the Dark Lord would appreciate it if you damaged the boy before he gives permission.”

“Shut up Severus. He screams just like his father… It sounds so lovely,” Bellatrix said her voice going from fierce to soft while she swayed slowly back and forth to whatever melody she heard from the screams.

“That is so like you, so impulsive. That’s why you make mistakes and get punished so easily.”

Xander turned to stare at the speaker, this wasn’t Snape or Voldemort speaking, this was Anya.

“Ahn, um,” Xander’s voice trailed off as everyone’s attention turned to Anya. On the upside Neville stopped screaming, Bellatrix’s curse having ended when her attention had moved.

The others on the wall had been struggling to escape, to do anything to stop Bellatrix from what she was doing, in silence though having been hit with silencing spells. Anya had effectively become the focus of both the good and bad guys.

Anya snorted, “You’ve always been impulsive, uncaring of your surroundings, it’s no wonder that you got caught so easily. I mean your lord was gone, what, one day and you got arrested. I spent today in Diagon Alley, I looked through back issues of the Daily Prophet and even some books that mentioned you. You were so… pathetic, it’s no wonder you couldn’t escape prison on your own.”

Bellatrix looked at Anya with her eyes narrowed and her hand clenched tightly around her wand. Just as she was ready to pull her wand Voldemort decided to speak out.

“Have you ever really… hurt someone Anya?” he asked softly.

“I used to be known for my cruelty, the way I could twist what someone wanted to make the worst of it,” Anya giggled. “You haven’t lived until you… Perhaps I shouldn’t discuss this in detail for you. Bellatrix would merely try to imitate it and she would fail so utterly, she’ll never be as good as me.” Anya’s face adopted a faint smirk at this as she saw Bellatrix try to hold back as she trembled in anger.

“Then would you like to take over?” Voldemort offered almost gently, he was very curious about what Anya was hinting to on her abilities.

Xander by this point was watching Anya confused. Since the third time she’d become human she’d shown no interest in being anything but a ‘white hat’ as Spike would have put it, on the path to redemption and all. Xander reached over and wrapped an arm around Anya’s waist and pulled her close so that he could speak quietly into her ear, “Ahn, what are you doing?”

Anya looked up at him and kissed him passionately before whispering, “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.” She then looked at Voldemort, “I’m sorry I can’t do that right now. The demon hunting organization that Xander and I work for has a treaty with the Wizarding World. We’ve been studying it for a week now and so far the only way we can interfere with wizards is in self-defense or if demons are involved. There aren’t even any clauses about the employment of wizards. Though the fact that we’re wizards is really the only reason we can be here as it is. We’re trying to have it dissolved, but have been unable to meet with the ministry of magic to deal with that. They’re apparently very busy trying to deal with you.” Anya let out another soft snicker at that. “You have them running quite scared.”

Voldemort smiled at this. Which was apparently quite a scary sight to some of the prisoners since many flinched. In the case of poor Neville Longbottom, passed out, though that might have been more because of Bellatrix than Voldemort. Harry, suspended up against the wall, watched confused, hadn’t Xander said he was a good guy? Why wasn’t he trying to help?

“Perhapsss,” Voldemort hissed out, “you would like a demonstration of my abilities.” He quickly moved his wand removing the silencing spell on his mortal enemy and his friends.

“You really are cruel aren’t you?” asked Xander before he could stop himself.

“What?” Voldemort said emotionlessly as he turned to his grandson.

“Having fun when you know we can’t participate,” Anya said quickly.

Snape, seeing the window of opportunity, “Perhaps it is wrong to do this in front of them, maybe after they leave-” Before he could continue Snape fell to his knees and held back a scream after being hit with his Lord’s crucio.

“I don’t believe I asked for your opinion,” Voldemort said his head tilted a bit to the side as he watched one of his favorites kneel before him in pain. He had always enjoyed putting Snape under the crucio, there was just something about the way he held back, refusing to scream, that made Voldemort want to see how long he would last. He would always give in, eventually.

Snape looked up a drop of blood dripping out his nose. He managed, barely, to whisper out, “Forgive me Master, I meant no disrespect.”

“Yes. Please release him… Grandfather,” Xander said hesitantly.

“Very well. For you… Grandson.”

***

“I’m glad you have decided to accept our family connection,” Voldemort said softly while approaching Xander. He reached out and gently touched Xander’s cheek. Xander repressed a shudder. Voldemort’s skin was cold and hard.

Anya reached over and wrapped her arm around Xander’s waist. The two exchanged looks before turning to look at Snape. Xander moved slightly planning to go over and help him up when Snape glared at him. Xander frowned and moved slightly back into place. Snape realized how dangerous it was to risk being seen as weak in the eyes of the Dark Lord. And both Xander and he would have been considered weak if he’d helped him up.

“And you chose such a lovely bride. A pureblood with such an unexpected gift for the dark arts, yes?” Voldemort said softly almost as if asking them to deny it. “I wish I could see some of your tortures. Would you be… willing… to place some of your experiences in a pensieve?”

“Um. I’d be honored,” Anya said agreeing. “Just know this isn’t the faint of heart. Probably shouldn’t let HER watch them.”

“What!?” Bellatrix shrieked. “You- you- you witch!!! You can’t fool me! You’re just lying trying to get into my lord’s favor! I wish you’d just go away!”

“Well I wish you’d all take this into another room so we wouldn’t have to listen to you! You’re both insane!” Ron called out from the wall. “It’s bad enough knowing you’re here without listening to you as well.”

“Why you,” Bellatrix shook with rage as she reached out her wand to curse Ron.

Seeing it the others started calling things out, hoping she’d get to frustrated to actually pick someone to curse before she’d be stopped. Some of the more notable include:

“I wish a snargle was here.”

“I wish we were home.”

“I wish I had the largest personal library in the world.”

“Well I wish you and all your death eaters would go to the deepest pit of hell while I got to know my parents.”

“That works. GRANTED!” Anya called out as her body changed and her face was covered with odd veins.

A pop was heard as Voldemort and Bellatrix both vanished. Snape looked around confused.

“But… But… But you said you weren’t a demon anymore,” Ron stuttered out.

“No,” Anya said clearly with her demonic form showing. “I said I wasn’t the Justice Demon for Scorned Women anymore. And I’m not. I never said anything about not being a demon.”

“That’s semantics!” Hermione cried out.

“I was still honest.”

“What are you the demon of now?” Harry asked concerned since it was his wish she’d granted.

“Lost innocence. I just don’t have it in my anymore to hurt men for breaking hearts, especially if they didn’t mean to hurt them. This way I grant wishes against child abusers, rapists, murderers, and people that most governments acknowledge as bad people, often those who would have gotten away with what they did.”

“But what about the prophesy?”

“Prophesy?” Xander asked feeling annoyance approaching. Goddess he hated prophesies.

“Yeah,” Harry looked at his friends suddenly worried that maybe this was a trick to find out the prophesy. Just as he’d decided not to reveal it he screamed in pain. It only lasted a moment, but it hurt, a lot. Panting he looked around only to realize that Snape had collapsed back down just as he’d screamed.

“Harry,” Hermione called out shocked. “You’re scar… It’s gone!”

“What?”

“So is the Dark Mark,” Snape said hoarsely sitting up with his sleeve rolled up revealing a bare arm without any blemishes on it.

Anya shrugged, “I granted your wish Harry. You wanted him and his minions gone. I sent them to a hell dimension. Time passes differently there. When he died for good there, most likely in great paid, his echoes in this world went with him.”

“The prophesy… It said I had a power he knew not,” Harry revealed.

“I think vengeance magic counts as that,” Xander said softly. “Anya told us that as a child he was supposed to have a wish granted but he wouldn’t make a wish, so he never knew that kind of magic.”

“But why was my wish granted?”

“Haley,” Anya explained. “She was supposed to grant a wish for you as a child too. She was the Justice Demon for Children. She couldn’t get near you though. The wards on you and your childhood home were really very strong, she couldn’t breach them.”

“You knew this? You planned this, didn’t you? You knew I was here, you just had to get me to make a wish!”

“I’m not all knowing. My plan was to get Bellatrix to attack me, forcing me to take my demonic form in self defense. BAM! All of the sudden wizards are dealing with demons and then our organization could come in and deal with this. I didn’t know you were here. If a prophesy had been set into motion it wouldn’t surprise me if magic set it up so we’d meet and you’d make your wish.”

“Then why is Snape still here? He killed Dumbledore! He’s a death eater.”

“Don’t be an idiot Potter,” Snape hissed out as he stood up. “Your wish. You wanted to know your parents better.”

“I don’t care about your hatred towards my father!”

“That isn’t it either Harry,” Anya explained softly. “I can’t bring the dead to life, but magic can let you know them with pensieves and the like. You can see memories brought back. You have Remus Lupin to learn about your father.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Potter… Harry…” Snape began almost hesitantly. “Until we were about your age, your mother and I were best friends. I probably know more about her when she was younger than you are now than anyone else. I did what Dumbledore wanted. He was dying and this was our chance to trick the Dark- Voldemort into being sure of my loyalty. It would give me the best chance to protect you. I have always protected you as best I could. Not because of any life debt I owed your father like Dumbledore might have led you into believing, but because I loved your mother.”

“You’re lying! You have to be lying!”

“No,” Anya said softly. “He’s telling the truth. When I grant a wish, I always know everything I need to know. And I know this is the truth.”

“So,” Snape said as he walked closer to the other, “do I have your words that you won’t try to attack me? If so I’ll let you down.”

“I guess so,” Harry said slumping against the wall.

It was only a few moments later when he and his friends were all sitting on the floor rubbing their wrists, with the noticeable exception if Neville Longbottom who was lying flat on the floor.

“We need to get him to St. Mungos!” Hermione cried out as looked him over. Her muggle classes in helping out in the case of an emergency really not helping much in the wizarding world.

“No,” Anya said as Xander picked Neville up.

It was much harder than it looked. Xander might be much stronger than most humans but Neville wasn’t exactly light either. Snape rolled his eyes up momentarily before casting a quick lightening spell on him.

“We’ll take you all to headquarters, the wizarding world can’t do much with the unforgivables but the wiccans can. Willow called them up for advice and the wiccans who live in the area are at our home right now discussing… stuff. With their help you should all be up and about very quickly.”

***

It had been a week since the defeat of the Voldemort and while most of the DA had returned to their homes and spread the news that it was over, some had remained at the headquarters of their new allies. Snape had gone with them originally because of the problem with murder charges, but that had turned out to be a non-issue. Anya had done her work well, everyone not there when Voldemort bit the dust believed that Bellatrix Lestrange had killed Dumbledore. Neville had also remained for obvious reasons. He had suffered a great deal from Bella’s ministrations. Snape and Anya, being the only ones there to know much about it, were stuck explaining everything they knew about the crucio to the wiccans who were visiting. Snape, to his relief, had been relieved of that job when Madame Pomfrey had arrived earlier that day.

Harry remained because he didn’t want to return to the Dursley’s and didn’t have any other place to go until school started. The Weasley’s were busy dealing with Ron, who although greatly recovered was going to be stuck in bed for yet another week. So Harry didn’t want to impose, although he had a standing invitation to stay at the Burrow, issued the previous day after the Order had arrived to ‘rescue’ Harry. They had been shocked to discover him sitting in the living room doing summer homework. It had taken a little convincing but they had finally accepted that he was there of his own accord. And really none of them had any say in where he lived since the Dursley’s didn’t care and were quite happy with him living elsewhere.

Harry and Snape had both had to sit down with the various order members to get up to date with the current problems the complete absence of Death Eaters had caused. Remus and Tonks, who had chosen not to leave with the rest of the order members, had gone off to talk to OZ who was visiting to see what he could share about how he kept his wolf under control.

Harry and Snape sat down to talk to some of the scoobies for help.

“Unfortunately there isn’t much we can do,” Giles explained as Buffy and Xander sat with them discussing the problems.

“There has to be something,” Harry said softly. “Voldemort did a lot of damage to the Wizarding World. And your help could help a lot in straightening things out. A lot of people have died. Our world is in chaos. Yeah he’s gone, but so are all his death eaters. It’s incredible how many of them were working in the ministry. There are a ton of openings and not enough people to train them.”

“Well it’s better than having them there isn’t it?”

“Well yeah…”

“Besides,” Xander interrupted, “We have a lot to do too. I inherited a ton of properties from the various bad guys now that they’re gone.”

“How?” Snape asked confused.

“It’s got to do with entire family lines ending and the Dark Mark thing. Without family to inherit it all went to my grandfather and since he’s dead, to me. Anya and I were stuck at Gringotts all day a couple of days ago dealing with it. We’ve had to spend hours every day since talking to the goblins about it too. It’s a lot of money, with properties all over the world. I’ve got the ‘house elves’ cleaning them up and we’re going to turn a lot of them into schools, groups homes and the like for the Council and we’re thinking of also turning some of them into orphanages for wizarding children, maybe day schools for kids too young to attend Hogwarts. We’ve got a lot of ideas and we’re pretty confident we can pull it off. But we’re going to be spread pretty thin until we fix that.”

“Oh,” Harry said falling back against his chair and staring at them, then he blinked. “Just don’t tell Hermione that you have house elves, she’s against using them as slaves.”

“They’re not slaves.”

“What?” Snape and Harry asked in unison.

“No… Anya knows the spell originally used to turn brownies into house elves. We altered it, we can’t free them, but their children will be free and they will eventually become a new species. What they are now is too ingrained in their systems, only a few of them would survive free.”

“Oh,” Harry said blinking as he thought about how differently Dobby and Winky reacted to being free.

Giles decided to speak up, “We really are very busy now. We’ll help when we can but we really don’t know much about your society. You should probably ask people to come out of retirement. We’ve been doing something similar to increase our staff.”

“What!?” came a scream nearby.

Xander rushed up and ran towards the voice of his wife. The others followed a second behind him. “Ahn! What’s wrong!?”

“Madame Pomphrey was just explaining what a dementor is! You know I did a bit of research last week? I didn’t have that much time so I only really read about a year back in the newspaper issues. They summarized past events that were related to things so I really didn’t need to go further back. They mentioned that the dementors, the guards to their prison, had apparently sided with Voldemort but didn’t really say anything else about them. The description she just gave me fits Anarama demons! And they have been using them for years! Before, during and after that stupid treaty was signed! The contract was signed in good faith by the old watcher’s council, and the wizarding world never upheld their part of the contract, to not deal with demons, and to contact the council if they couldn’t handle a demonic problem in a timely fashion! That means the treaty is invalid! It’s ALWAYS been invalid!!!”

“But we were bound by it when we witnessed that attack two weeks ago?”

“They never knew that they hadn’t upheld their part of the treaty. All that planning I did wouldn’t have been necessary at all if I’d known what dementors were. Honestly, someone must have know they were demons, I mean really ‘dementors’ ‘demons’ it’s practically the same word with ‘tor’ added to it!”

“Does that mean the treaty can be officially invalidated?”

“Yes! The Council and the British Ministry of Magic will have to negotiate a new treaty.” Anya turned really fast to Giles, “I want in on that! The treaty should never have been valid in other countries either! After we finish this one we’ll go on to other Ministries of Magic and deal with them on an individual basis.”

“Whatever you say Ahn,” Xander agreed.

Harry rolled his eyes as the couple started kissing again. He was starting to get used to all the smooching going on with the Council employees. He still wasn’t able to look Willow in the eyes again after what he’d seen her and Kennedy doing his first night there. He certainly wasn’t going to come running if he heard either of them screaming again.

Neville smiled from his bed as he, Poppy and Willow looked on. He was well on his way to a full recovery thanks to the work of both types of magic. Poppy and Willow would be going on to see his parents in another day or two, both feeling fairly confident that they too would make a full recovery. Perhaps, thought Harry as he caught Neville’s gaze, they would like to work for the ministry again once they were released.

“OH!” Xander called out as he took a couple of deep breathes to recover from one really intense kiss. “You could probably hire some of the more benign demons to do some of the work then. There are spells to insure they don’t mean harm to humans.”

“That sounds good, I guess,” Harry said.

“We can’t really do that here, even harmless demons can ping on slaydar, so it’s safest for us to only employ demons as an outsource.”

“Still, it would have been nice to be able to see you all more after I have to go back to school.”

“Actually you’ll be seeing a lot of us Harry,” Xander began to explain.

“The two of us anyway, I’m your new DADA professor,” Anya said cutting in.

“And I’ll be teaching a new elective, Demonology, and the Headmistress said the Muggle Studies teacher is retiring next year so I might take that over too.”

“What about Snape?” asked Harry.

“I hate teaching,” Snape said coming up behind Harry. “I’m retiring and I’m planning to work for the council here as a potions master. Oz has agreed to show me what he does to control the wolf, I’m hoping to create a better wolfsbane with his help. I spoke to Remus and he and his wife are going to stay here also to help.”

“But why are you leaving the Council?” Harry asked Xander.

“For one thing it allows us to have a better idea on wand users who might want to work the council. We’ll be able to get more workers if we can give the ‘World is Older than You Know’ speech before recruiting. This way they’ll have some idea of what they might have to deal with if they decide to work for us. … We also thought it would be safer to get out of the demon hunting business for awhile,” Xander explained. He smiled at the confusion on the faces of the others.

“I’m pregnant!” Anya cried out happy.

Xander broke out into one of his huge grins as he reached for Anya and swung her about in a circle, forcing some people to back up. He’d reacted the same way when she’d first told him. They hadn’t been planning on having kids for awhile, but they were happy anyway.

Fin. Over.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally wrote this back in 2008-2009. 
> 
> 11 chapters + Epilogue. At the time this was not only my first Harry Potter story but also my longest. I started writing a sequel... I haven't touched it in ages.


End file.
